For the drying of freshly cut wood, for example, automatic or semiautomatic stackers are known which pile individual boards or groups of boards in successive layers on a supporting platform. Generally, in such a system, the platform is vertically movable and can descend stepwise in order to keep the top of the growing stack at a certain level. In order to expedite the seasoning of the wood, spacing strips are inserted between successive layers in a number and with a relative separation depending on the length and thickness of the boards as well as on the type of wood involved. Drying air can be circulated by blowers through the clearances thus formed in the stack.
Heretofore, the spacing strips had to be manually deposited on the uppermost board or boards of a stack before the addition of the next layer. A certain degree of automation in the strip-laying process can be achieved, according to an earlier proposal (see, for example, German published specification No. 2,259,394), by the provision of several magazines which can be filled with the necessary number of spacing strips and from which these strips can then be sequentially discharged at the proper locations along the stack. Such a system, however, still requires considerable manual work inasmuch as each of the magazines must be individually loaded before the beginning of the stacking operation.